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Finally she falls silent, and it’s because she’s seeing what few ever see. The old technologies. The remnants of the craft that brought our people here. The ship landed on the mountains and over time, every piece of it was taken and reassembled here, inside Mount Ion.
“This is a… ship.”
“This is the ship.”
I put her down and I let her walk around it. Many people today could not understand the significance of it, but she does. She walks around it slowly, touching it with the tips of her fingers, a gentle, reverent touch.
“This is ten thousand years old,” she says. “It’s so well preserved.”
“It is the cradle of our civilization.”
I can see awe on her face and respect in her eyes.
“When this was made, you and I were the same thing,” she says. “I mean, genetically. And then your people came all the way here and mine kept going their way and… so many things have happened in between. So much has changed.”
She’s not angry anymore. She’s whimsical.
“The odds that you and I would ever stand together in the same place at the same time… they’re impossible. But we’re both here.”
“You came here. To me.”
“I didn’t come. I was sent. And then I was brought down.”
She looks at me from across the ship. “I haven’t made a choice in my life. Not one. Men make decisions for me. And sometimes, I guess, women. Why are you showing me this?”
“To teach you something.”
“What?”
She is so intelligent, but she needs everything explained in explicit words.
“You told me your people live long lives. You told me you don’t get sick, or pass away from illnesses. We’re here because of a rebellion. We live the way we do. Get sick the way we do. The people who piloted that craft disobeyed orders.”
“Oh. I see. This is some kind of…” She shakes her head at me. “What point are you trying to prove? That I should never have disobeyed you? Or never have disobeyed the Patron? Are you trying to say I should be a good little girl?”
“I’m saying when children rebel, disaster follows.”
“Now you sound like him.”
“Maybe he’s right.”
Her eyes narrow. “Maybe you’re both the same. Maybe I came lightyears across the universe, got shot down, nearly died, and all to end up here. Your captive. So maybe, in the end, there’s no escape.”
This is not doing what I hoped it would. I hoped it would bring her to her senses. I hoped she would see what we lost. It is all I see when I look at her. I understand her stories better than she understands mine. I am the brute. The animal. But she is the one who seems so slow to learn.
* * *
Tselia
I can tell Zion intended on this being a moment of some kind, a grand lesson to teach me to behave myself or some such thing, but that’s not what I’m thinking about right now.
This is a ship. It is a ship inside a mountain, but I don’t need to fly it. I just need it to communicate with mine. That is a tall order, but if it is capable of communication, if it has any power whatsoever left in its cells, it may be able to do what my broken, buried shuttle can no longer do. It could call my ship down from the stars. And I could be free. Truly free. I could come and go from this planet as I pleased. I could take trips to other star systems. I could go rogue. I could be a pirate… I could…
Zion’s hand closes firmly around my arm. “I want you here. With me. I will keep you here if I have to. But I want you to want it too.”
I stare at him and let out a derisive laugh. “You want me to want to be your captive fuck slave? You want me to want to be beaten when I break one of your rules? You think I’m going to want those things because you show me a wreck?”
I throw the questions in his face, laughing at his arrogance. Now I see what this is truly about. It’s not enough that he can make me submit to him. He wants me to do it for him. Just like the Patron wanted me to be an obedient slave, Zion desires the same thing, but even more. If even one of these men, for a single moment, gave a thought to what I might want, maybe I would care what they want.
Zion’s expression closes. His face becomes as hard as the rock that surrounds us. He does not say another word. He reverts back into the animal silence that is his customary way of being and he drags me out of the cave. I keep careful note of where we are, the twists and the turns. I’m coming back here.
